First Look at the Amazon Books in Washington, DC

Amazon currently operates a dozen brick-and-mortar bookstores, and they are getting ready to open three more, including one in our nation's capital. This afternoon found me in DC, so I made a brief detour and visited the DC Amazon Books location.

The windows were papered over, so there wasn't much to see. But from the outside it looked like n ordinary storefront and not the den of iniquity that publishing trade coverage had lead me to expect.

The Amazon Books location is part of a larger three and a half story building that used to house a Barnes & Noble store. Most of the space is taken up by a Nike store, however, and the Amazon Books is limited to a fairly typical 3-story commercial storefront.

Do you see the orange in the window? That is Amazon Books, and so are the two floors above, but everything to the right is either a burger bar or private office, and everything to the left is the Nike store (Amazon has black signage in the windows of the Nike store, but I did check and the space behind the sign is part of the Nike store.)

While Amazon has confirmed that this is a bookstore, they haven't said how they are going to use the space.

So it remains to be seen whether they will limit the store to the ground floor and use the rest of the space for another purpose, or use the entire volume as a bookstore.

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Nate Hoffelder

Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader: He's here to chew bubble gum and fix broken websites, and he is all out of bubble gum. He has been blogging about indie authors since 2010 while learning new tech skills at the drop of a hat. He fixes author sites, and shares what he learns on The Digital Reader's blog. In his spare time, he fosters dogs for A Forever Home, a local rescue group.

[…] Today is a great day, one where we should celebrate the revival of bookstores, because Amazon's seventeenth store has been confirmed for Maryland. It's going to be built in the Bethesda Row shopping center which is located about 5 miles from the Amazon Books location in DC. […]